Oscar Pistorius' Advantage

What Oscar Pistorius Means For The Olympics

“He does have an advantage,” proclaims Weyand, associate professor of applied physiology and biomechanics at Southern Methodist University. The two camps went back and forth in academic journals and in the media, leading to a debate Weyand believes deteriorated into “food fighting.”

“It was frustrating,” he says, “because Bundle and I did not stray from our vow to be respectful to everyone.”

Gabriel Brizuela, professor of biomechanics at the University of Spain, believes that the dissent among the scientific community proves the issue is still murky. “If the advantage would be clear, scientists would agree,” he says. “When scientists do not agree it is because they cannot clearly demonstrate that he has an advantage or not.”

Brizuela points out that several amputee athletes use the same exact Cheetah models as Pistorius, yet none have come close to the competitive times he’s recorded. (Weyand counters by saying most of those users are single-limb amputees and cannot benefit from the momentum achieved with two prostheses.) Moreover, Pistorius himself has progressively gotten better over the years, which would seem to indicate it’s his physiological improvement and not the static equipment that enables him to compete. Herr agrees. He once compared Pistorius’ locomotion to running on a mattress, his equipment too “dumb” to observe any neural commands.

“Some ‘scientific based’ predictions state his prosthesis gives Pistorius a 12-second advantage during a 400 meter race,” Brizuela says. “It means that without this advantage Pistorius would race the 400 meters in about 57 seconds. This statement is really absurd because anyone who begins training is able to achieve this result, probably in the first season.”

Critics of Pistorius may be having an emotional reaction to the sight of a man with a visible marriage to technology. Where some see a moving tribute to willpower, others see a threat. What if Pistorius can run faster than the rest of us? What does that mean for the “normals” who don’t have the access or opportunity for such technological marvels?

Andy Miah, a bioethicist from England, has been fascinated with Pistorius ever since the initial media cascade of 2008. “It’s always interesting to see how discussion of technology happens across the board, not only with Pistorius but any time something new comes out,” he says. “You tend to have people anxious about it because they don’t have it.

“But the same athletes who make those kinds of claims use technology within their own performances. They may have better nutritionists, better biomechanists, better psychologists than the next athlete. It’s disingenuous to claim technology is not fair because athletes all have different means at their disposal, whether they recognize them as advantages or not.”

At their most paranoid, the anti-Pistorius crowd may fear a time when athletes with mechanical assistance will outpace their able-bodied counterparts, much the same way NASCAR’s wedding of man and machine can outdraw men simply racing on two legs. If that happens, Miah dubs it tough luck. “Olympic sport is already a kind of selective population. If you don’t have the right kind of genotype, the right kind of training, you’re not going to be competitive. If in 25 or 30 years, we tune in to the Paralympics much more than the Olympics, and that’s the kind of performance we regard to be worthy of our praise and admiration, then that’s a good thing.”

For all the fretting over Pistorius being an overt cheat, his recent performances have not exactly been supporting the argument. While he placed an impressive third in the 2011 World Championships against world-class competition, under the South African “A” standard for Olympic qualification, Pistorius must run the 400 meters at or under 45.30 seconds within three months of the Games. He ran it back in March, but subsequent attempts have been slower. Because the South Africans may not have any better sprinters, he could well wind up in London anyway. But how much of an advantage can those artificial legs be when you’re losing races?

Pistorius doesn’t seem worried. “My fitness levels are very strong at the moment,” he says. “I have spent a lot of time shedding weight, as in the past I have built more for 100 meters, but 400 meters is where my strength lies. I feel fit, healthy and in good form and hope this will emerge as the season progresses.”

If he doesn’t make the cut, it’s far from the end of the story. “Rio in 2016 would be a real peak for me. It’s where I would hope to be challenging at the top of the sport.”

Possibly against men like Merritt, who insists the IAAF should be keeping watchful tabs on Pistorius, even as he must wear the dubious mark of testing positive for the steroids DHEA and pregnenolone back in 2009. In a world where athletes often use whatever means available to succeed, Pistorius might be racing just to keep up.